Indians in Australia are Becoming More Visible and Not Always in a Positive Manner | Surjeet Dhanji

There has been growing anti-immigration and anti-Indian sentiment in many countries, including in Australia. A Member of Parliament recently claimed that the government was bringing in too many Indians so that they would vote for it. 

The government criticised her and her own party demoted her status. A government report in 2021 called Indians a “national asset”. “The educated people and those in white collar jobs know this, but the rest of the populace does not,” says Surjeet Dhanji, an academic fellow at the Australia India Institute and a scholar of migration. “But when you have the Liberal party saying we need to cap migration or cap international students, and when Indians are among the leading numbers of migrants, what kind of message are you sending?”

The Indians are polite, they work hard, they pay taxes, they speak English, but “there are no Indians in leadership roles,” she said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast conversation. “We need a concerted effort by the Indian community to tell the layperson who watches the news or is on social media that Indians are contributing.” But Australians don’t like it when “migrants bring their home issues to this country.”

She explains that after the anti-Indian violence in 2008 and after Covid, migration slowed down and a huge backlog built up. “But the numbers of Indians are no more than of any other community,” she said. However,  they are visible in many blue collar jobs such as couriers, hospitality, security guards.